Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Picking up where we last left off, Jacki and I went to see deSol at Andrews Upstairs Saturday night. We got there during soundcheck and Soto waived to Jacki and I as we walked in. After the finished up Jacki went down and talked the band. Evidently Soto and James had told the other members about The Superlatives performance from Thursday. All the guys came by and introduced themselves and were very supportive of the fact that we won Thursday night.

I had taken some pictures of them from Bonnaroo and Aquafina on the Bricks and Armando and Albie had seen the pictures and were visibly excited about how they turned out.

After the set we talked to the band a little more and then watched The Connells. I know I'm in no position to criticize a band, but watching REM type music just isn't my thing.

We stepped out met up with deSol again and closed out the night. A very good Saturday night.

Sunday we rehearsed and Jacki and I went to the Allman Brothers Band at the Fox. Great music, although not too exciting to watch. They were selling Instant Live cd performances of the show immediately afterwards and I'm realizing that I'll enjoy the cd of the show better than the show itself. At least I can now say I've seen them. I must admit they brought a guest keyboardist and proceeded into a great jam between him, Warren and Derek Trucks. That jam was worth the price of admission.

Monday night we played an 11pm set at Smiths Olde Bar. Of course load in at 5:30 occurs just as Hurricane Jeanne, which is now Tropical Storm Jeanne blows into the greater Atlanta area. I'm out trying to take my drums up a flight of stairs fighting rain that is coming down in horizontal sheets. Needless to say I was soaked after load in.

As the first band from Nashville went on, I could immediately tell we've gone to the next level. The first two bands were great. Very tight, good songwriting, great musicians, and in general young people that love original music. Most of the places we had been playing preferred cover bands, so having a full night of original music was definitely a treat.

A few of my co-workers and their significant others came out and we put on a great 50 minute set. Short and sweet. After our show some people from the crowd that we didn't know asked how they could get more information on us and some of the other bands came by and gave us their approval.

We have Andrews again on Thursday and it appears we are moving up in the world of local Atlanta music.

Friday, September 24, 2004

We went on an hour and a half later than our scheduled performance, to a moderate sized crowd and won the wildcard for the battle of the bands. So we've been invited back to play next Saturday in the final round. The votes were 10 points from the judges and 1 point from any person you brought through the door. The amazing thing is we only had two people come through the door but still managed votes into the high 20s. Maybe we are the next critically acclaimed band :-)

One of the high points of our set was The Weather Song. You had people out in the crowd visibily feeling the groove of the song and having a good time. And then after the song, the sound guy comes across our monitors and tells us that was a really good song.

It turns out a new band, deSol, that Jacki and I discovered at Bonnaroo was in the audience. James, the conga player, Soto, the lead guitarist and a friend of theirs was sitting right in front of my band. I approached them, reintroduced myself and after a weird moment of them not realizing who I was, they remembered Jacki. We talked about some pictures I took of them at Bonnaroo and at a show a month or so back in Atlanta that they were able to check out.

deSol was gracious enough to stay long into the night to see our set. They had nothing but good things to say about our music and about my playing. The funny thing is they seem to have the Spinal Tap syndrome with drummers, so I said next time the rotating door opens, then give me a call. :-) They are on Curb records and their album came out about 3-4 weeks ago.

We exchanged phone numbers and there is a chance that Jacki and I will take some of the guys out to dinner in appreciation of their music.

Our next show is at Smith's Olde Bar on Monday night and we hope to see you there. And remember my offer, if you come out to our show, find me, and mention my blog, I'll buy you your first round of drinks.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

I'm sitting at Andrews Upstairs waititng for our time to go on stage. As usual things are a bit unorganized as you'd expect with 10 bands. The best I can tell they are running about an hour behind which should put us on stage around midnight.

Article from msnbc. Real has done the standard loss leader experiement in order to attract new customers. Their experiement worked. They gained new customers but more significantly. Real sold six times as much music and took in three times as much money.

With Apple the music publisher received approximately $0.70 per song therefore $700,000
With Real the music publisher received $4,200,000

Quite a big difference. Unfortunately this is a model that Real can't sustain, and the opportunity the music publisher gives up today is quite large (4.2M - .7M=3.6M)

Even if the publisher cuts their royalties to $0.20 they will still receive more cash in the above scenario $1,200,000.

Music publishers take notice. Finding a middle ground, between $0.20 and $0.40 would be better for all players, except Real. Honestly who are they fooling if all parts are equal. iTunes will win everytime if price isn't a differentiator. The one thing Real and Napster has going for them that Apple hasn't figured out quite yet, is a subscription model for services.

MSNBC - Forecast: Song Costs May Fall Like Rain: "This summer provided a clue to further harnessing the force of digital nature. For three weeks, Real Networks tried to lure new customers by slashing prices to 49 cents a song and $4.99 per album. Since Real paid the full royalty load to the labels (almost 70 cents a tune), the company lost money on every transaction. CEO Rob Glaser says that the company did get new customers, but here's the real news: Real sold six times as much music and took in three times as much money."

Sunday, September 19, 2004

After nearly two months of sporadically working on the album demos we've finished. Three songs completed for others to hear. These will be posted on our website in the next week or so and if the band can afford it, we may have the tracks mastered and put onto cd for promotional purposes.

I strongly recommend a ProTools 6.X setup on a Mac as a viable recording solution. Although a G4 iMac with only 768MB of memory might be cutting it close if you will be using many of the plugins or a large number of tracks. The recording equipment and software cost $1195 but was well worth the price. The iMac was another $2K or so, but Apple just announced their new G5 iMacs which should nicely do.

The Superlatives has a few gigs over the next couple of weeks. I suspect after we finish those we will put together the plan for the cd. We have been toying with the idea that we will use fewer tracks, maybe 5-6 instead of the 8 or 9 we had originally discussed. And then to throw everything off Katie mentioned tonight she has two more songs she has been working on, one of which is probably worthy of our next batch of recordings.

For those of you wanting to hear the tunes, you can check out our website under the Music section, or you can pester me at a show or via email and I'll post them or burn a disc for you.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

My band has gotten a windfall of new shows lined up. After a month of dealing with death, heavy work schedules and little rehearsal we are back to playing.

It all starts Sunday at Jake's Toadhouse to finish off the battle of the bands. A bit uncoordinated on their part, but its all just rock and roll now, isn't it? Next Thursday at Andrew's Upstairs, the following Monday at Smiths Olde Bar, and then the last show is perhaps something to get excited about.

We've been invited to play the Atlanta Falcons Tailgate party pre-game on October 10. This should get us hopefully in front of out largest crowd yet. A full 2 hour set.

Come out and support live music. Mention this site and I'll personally buy you a beer at the show. (Band members don't count!)

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Sunday, September 05, 2004

Looks like DSL isn't working after all. I got it to briefly and intermittently work Friday night but nothing on Saturday. After a few more calls to customer support they've decided to send me a replacement modem.

In the meantime this server is back running off the cable modem connection.

I will note that when it was working the speeds seemed faster than the cable line. Only time will tell...

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Last night the band got together and listened to mixes of some of our favorite cds. The intent was to listen to mixes of other bands to see what can guide how we mix and ultimately inspire our approach to mixing.

Cds included some of my favorites including Bob Schneider and The Ugly Americans, Cry Of Love, Edwin McCain, Black Crowes, and a couple of others. The other guys brought in Tom Petty, and John Mellencamp.

It was definitely a good experiment. We were able to quickly identify what we liked and how we could apply to our music. Mike V and I spent the remainer of the evening mixing Kiss Me Goodbye and approaching with how do we add emphasis to the different sections of the song, and attempting to keep it interesting but not over the top. After a couple of hours I can confidently say we have our best mix to date.

We should finish up mixing of our first three tracks in the next couple of weeks and I'll be posting at least one of them on the site. The others you'll have to come to our shows to get.

Did I mention Smiths Olde Bar called. We are booked for Monday September 27.